People & Places

Best Downtown-Minded Internet Savant New York 2009 - Bucky Turco

You've gotta respect Bucky Turco. The editor in chief of Animal New York, Turco is a streetwise guy who once unmasked the defiantly anonymous art-world star Banksy by publishing (alleged) pictures of him while manning Complex Magazine's blog, and promptly got a cease-and-desist from a representative law firm. Then after leaving "Marc Ecko's shopazine" (his words) to run Animal full-time, Turco later got his hands on pre-PhotoShopped images of Complex cover girl Kim Kardashian—always a boon for website traffic—and later became the first person to wrangle an interview with Kari Ferrell, the chest-pieced beard-loving con artist who came to be known as the Hipster Grifter. Turco has since remained pen pals with Ms. Ferrell; meanwhile, his crew of contributors (like Cajun Boy and Will Sherman) keeps "cultureholics" (their word) abreast of drug-ephemera updates, graffiti-writer hijinks, and women who Twitter about having their periods. Say what you want, but this man sure knows how to capture local Internet attention.

It has come to my attention that you have awarded Bucky Turco the title of Downtown (Idiot) Savant.

All I've got to say is, listen, I don't even know the guy. Everything he has ever said concerning me has been a farce. I never wrote those disgusting letters, and if I had corresponded with someone, it wouldn't have been him. I met Bucky Turco briefly, at The Charleston, but was unware of who he was. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in a disgusting apartment, without my pants, and have this guy wearing a University of California-Santa Cruz Banana Slug costume hovering over me, breathing heavily, listening to "Jitterbug".

Would you really want to honor a guy that listens to Wham!? That's what I thought.